The fees associated with credit and debit card transactions have been under increasing pressure from the merchant community in recent years. In addition to disputing the interchange levels themselves, involved merchants are aligning to legally challenge the explicit Visa and Mastercard rules that prohibit merchants from attempting to recoup these costs from card-paying customers via surcharging.

The natural question becomes, what will the merchants actually do if they are able to place surcharges on card transactions? At present, this appears to be shaping up as a classic prisoner's dilemma: with consumer reaction to surcharging a big unknown, it is difficult to construct an effective strategy without knowing what the competition is planning.

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